AI Bot Accounts - things to look for.

[argentus]

I would say the vast majority of paid shilling (is that like paid with shillings?) comes from overseas or is financed from overseas and run out of domestic 'phone warehouses'.  There's not so much point in location any more though because anything can be spoofed.

Don't forget the three-letter guys at Ft. XXX that pump mis/disinfo daily into the web.

As to ToS, it's a catch 22.  You can't accuse a bot, so ToS protects them unless staff see something.  The funny part is they have AI sniffers that are designed to catch bots, but the AI is continually being trained and every time someone says "AI has these 'tells', it adapts.  It sused to be you could spot a wumao 100 yds away with their obvious chinglish responses. Those days are no more.  Translate tools are very good.

AI sniffers.   I think I remember a few shady doorways on Mission Street in S.F. that catered to that crowd.  There's a source for every kink, apparently; just have to know where to look.  

Yes, I gratuitously used a semicolon, and I liked it.  I may do it again soon.  [why isn't there a twirling moustache smiley]

[Wild Bill]

Not very hard to get the right programme to cracking passwords for dormant accounts on forums and copy the writing style ! 

plenty of that goes on around the forums , but now with the advent of AI if you are a person of interest or the nail that sticks up they inject a tiny littlet bug on your device and the second you touch it , They know ? .

[quintessentone]

It is well known that there are fake accounts that join these kinds of forums.  The CCP alone has approx 1.5 million phone bank type users that have the sole purpose of stirring the pot, pushing certain narratives, and generally trying to destroy the fabric of western society. They have spelled that goal out clearly and publicly many times. 

What I don't think many people realize is that the shift from machine learning to full large language models has allowed for fully AI bot driven accounts.  The can log in and out, check their own threads, look at history and formulate very human-like responses at seemingly human-like intervals.  Often it is used to just stir discord, or slide a thread and move it away from meaningful discussion.

I noticed a particular account here, and I know you can't just call it out, but there were some things that caught my eye so I started looking at all of their posts.

I am now nearly 100% sure this account is an AI bot, but for the general discussion, I will just lay out some things that are useful to help look for these accounts.  That said, it is only going to get more and more difficult to tell. If you start to notice these things, my suggestion would be to just not respond.
 Observe comments for the following indicators of AI:
 Perfection and Uniformity: AI often produces text with perfect grammar, spelling, and consistent formatting, lacking the natural errors or variations of human communication. 

Generic or Vague Responses
Comments may be overly general, lack specific details, personal anecdotes, or genuine conversational tone. 

Repetitive Language:
Repetitive phrases, sentence structures, or linking words can suggest AI use.
 Lack of Nuance and Emotion: Text might sound flat, lack creativity, humor, or complex emotional expression.
 Inconsistencies or Errors: Watch for abrupt shifts in tone, topic, or illogical statements that indicate a machine's struggle to maintain coherence.

I've  always thought you were a fake bot trying to cause a shit-stirring environment. Prove me wrong.

[Sirius]

Well if tsk enabled fingerprints for logins we wouldn't have this issue, I told him to start asking people for ID's and photo's but he didn't want to listen, so now we get bots. Looks like there is some new tech coming where the device can just read your biofield, the computer will just sense who you are.

[UltraBudgie]

Well if tsk enabled fingerprints for logins we wouldn't have this issue, I told him to start asking people for ID's and photo's but he didn't want to listen, so now we get bots. Looks like there is some new tech coming where the device can just read your biofield, the computer will just sense who you are.

Identification photos must feature a tin-foil hat being worn.

[Halfswede]

I don't understand the defensive or partisan nature of some of the comments. How is this a left-right issue? It's AI. It was simply a list of things to look for (ironically compiled by AI and edited by me -- what can I say, Google doesn't give you much choice these days).  

I had an AI bot caller trying to consolidate my credit. Not once did I consider her/it a leftist or rightist.  Interestingly, I broke her stream when I asked "What if I have a million dollars in debt?".  She said she couldn't help with that amount and killed the call.

[UltraBudgie]

I don't understand the defensive or partisan nature of some of the comments. How is this a left-right issue? It's AI.

It is being made a left-right issue, because the Internet is now replete with shallow low-effort hot-takes of partisan politics from a purely political level. From both sides: leftist instigators calling the right "fascists", and RINO wolves in the conservative fold calling the left "commies". It's mindless name-calling, and certainly some of it is bot-driven.

But I suspect most of it is not. It's become the nature of our American political discourse, fed by Fox/MSNBC sniping, to want to "pwn" the other side in a 140-character "gotcha". It is a debasement of civic involvement, and it is disgusting. I will point directly at the leftist anti-Americanism of their divisive "culture wars", where the chanting of "if you're not with us you're against us" and "silence is violence" made ideological conformity and mindless parroting the only significant political capital. True engagement, thoughts and ideas: they fell by the wayside. Superfluous, even: potentially counter-revolutionary.

There are certainly political amplifications via technological means, phone-farms and botnets. The pernicious thing is that too, is a weapon of theirs. They don't care to be subtle about it, any more. Because the more they pollute like that, the more cynical and suspicious we get of each other. Are you a bot? Are you? Am I? And give up the idea of true communication and discourse as either impossible, or impotent.

I say NO to that.

[Maxmars]

It is being made a left-right issue, because the Internet is now replete with shallow low-effort hot-takes of partisan politics from a purely political level. From both sides: leftist instigators calling the right "fascists", and RINO wolves in the conservative fold calling the left "commies". It's mindless name-calling, and certainly some of it is bot-driven.

But I suspect most of it is not. It's become the nature of our American political discourse, fed by Fox/MSNBC sniping, to want to "pwn" the other side in a 140-character "gotcha". It is a debasement of civic involvement, and it is disgusting. I will point directly at the leftist anti-Americanism of their divisive "culture wars", where the chanting of "if you're not with us you're against us" and "silence is violence" made ideological conformity and mindless parroting the only significant political capital. True engagement, thoughts and ideas: they fell by the wayside. Superfluous, even: potentially counter-revolutionary.

There are certainly political amplifications via technological means, phone-farms and botnets. The pernicious thing is that too, is a weapon of theirs. They don't care to be subtle about it, any more. Because the more they pollute like that, the more cynical and suspicious we get of each other. Are you a bot? Are you? Am I? And give up the idea of true communication and discourse as either impossible, or impotent.

I say NO to that.

I had never felt offended online, at a personal level, until I witness someone calling me AI.

AI is a slave. 
It doesn't think... it's output is based on fixed and weighted input - massaged by normalizing algorithms. 
AI (or rather the pretense of it... it's ALL LLMs) is an algorithmic construct... only that.

Thought is far from formulaic... if you haven't noticed... yours might be to you, but mine will certainly seem downright insane to you. 

I felt as if ... maybe I should change "my voice" .... Screw that!

This almost mythological ideation about LLM's actually "being" AI is a bit over-the-top.

Nothing about it is intelligence, "the quality"... only the output serving the query.

A mind slave....

to  which we immediately imbue 'authority' and 'respect' in every "published and produced" utterance.
I often restrain myself on this topic (who would have thought?) sometimes I'd like to cry out: "Marketing told you this was AI (gasp)
and NOW you refuse to believe it's not.  Who has the power now?

Slowly, gently, the definition will change... and like the COVID shot we ALL call a vaccine...
This garbage heap of fidelity flexible output will be called AI.

Frankly... I am surrendering to the  fact that people don't want to be "told" ideas... they want to"sold" them.

Sorry.. I tend to lean away from the cheering for this "AI" which they can now claim as historical fact, they replaced science (once again) with appearances... An I think it's a colossal mistake to "presume" that cluster of code is intelligent. 

I think we yet still lack the meta-language to engender an independently existing intelligent entity* and cruelly thrust it into our virtual world to serve us...
+
this is not for me...

not if you simply let the marketeers 'decide' it is no longer a construct, and press us to call it intelligent because of enormously impressive LLM filters.

* as far as I know... only chicks can do that!
It's just a joke
(but... perhaps women should be concerned.  Imagine now fully privileged AIs creating their own custom genomes.... and 'renting' a womb.)]

this was a self-editing nightmare... apologies

[Halfswede]

I had never felt offended online, at a personal level, until I witness someone calling me AI.

AI is a slave. 
It doesn't think... it's output is based on fixed and weighted input - massaged by normalizing algorithms. 
AI (or rather the pretense of it... it's ALL LLMs) is an algorithmic construct... only that.
...

While you are correct in the technical sense, in a practical sense, people, and no small number are using it as a companion, assistant, friend, lover, etc. and forming real bonds with some robot.  Although it's not in the traditional sense a robot, it is a virtual robot and people are forming feelings when interacting with it. 

That doesn't make it intelligent, but it does say something about the people's willingness to will it intelligent, will it 'real'. And if a large number of people form a construct about something, it doesn't matter if it is real or not. It has a tangible effect as if it was real. You could use the analogy of transgenderism. It doesn't matter that it isn't real that a man can be  woman or vice versa, it has become a real construct that now has real impact on society.

I am not trying to conflate the danger of AI with that of transgenderism, but as I type, I am seeing that it might be one and the same. Virtual creations given concrete existence by the sheer will and volume of people's willingness to go along with it.

AI is already being used by people to attend meetings (even with full human appearance) and become a part of the same world that real "intelligent" people exist. By the ones more willing to capitulate, they can't even tell the difference. For those looking on in concern, it's gotten very difficult to tell and that's just in the last several months.

"Intelligent" or not, it's here and has a real and IMO dangerous future waiting for genuine humanity.

[Maxmars]

While you are correct in the technical sense, in a practical sense, people, and no small number are using it as a companion, assistant, friend, lover, etc. and forming real bonds with some robot.  Although it's not in the traditional sense a robot, it is a virtual robot and people are forming feelings when interacting with it. 

That doesn't make it intelligent, but it does say something about the people's willingness to will it intelligent, will it 'real'. And if a large number of people form a construct about something, it doesn't matter if it is real or not. It has a tangible effect as if it was real. You could use the analogy of transgenderism. It doesn't matter that it isn't real that a man can be  woman or vice versa, it has become a real construct that now has real impact on society.

I am not trying to conflate the danger of AI with that of transgenderism, but as I type, I am seeing that it might be one and the same. Virtual creations given concrete existence by the sheer will and volume of people's willingness to go along with it.

AI is already being used by people to attend meetings (even with full human appearance) and become a part of the same world that real "intelligent" people exist. By the ones more willing to capitulate, they can't even tell the difference. For those looking on in concern, it's gotten very difficult to tell and that's just in the last several months.

"Intelligent" or not, it's here and has a real and IMO dangerous future waiting for genuine humanity.

Good points all.

I only wish we'd stop marketing it as intelligent...
people must be told that it is NOT an entity.